The Rampart Dam was a hydroelectric power proposal in the 1950s and
1960s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dam the Yukon River in
Alaska, United States. The project was planned for Rampart Canyon,
about 105 miles (169 km) west-northwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. The
resulting dam would have created a lake roughly the size of Lake Erie,
making it the largest man-made reservoir in the world. The plan for the
dam itself called for a concrete structure 530 feet (162 m) high with a
top length of about 4,700 feet (1,430 m). Though supported by many
politicians and businesses in Alaska, the project was canceled when
concerns arose about the project's cost. Native Alaskans in the area
protested the threatened loss of nine villages that would be flooded by
the dam. Conservation groups abhorred the threatened flooding of the
Yukon Flats, a large area of wetlands that provides a critical breeding
ground for millions of waterfowl. Fiscal conservatives opposed the dam
on the grounds of its large cost and limited benefit to Americans
outside Alaska. Because of these objections, United States Secretary of
the Interior Stewart Udall formally opposed construction of the dam in
1967, and the project was shelved.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_Dam>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1656:
Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg
defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth near Warsaw.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_%281656%29>
1927:
Five-year-old Michael I became King of Romania upon the death of his
grandfather Ferdinand I.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_I_of_Romania>
1944:
Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance
member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during
a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_20_Plot>
1951:
Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian from the
Husseini clan while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan>
1969:
The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the
moon six-and-a-half hours later.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cavil (v):
To criticise for petty or frivolous reasons
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cavil>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
--Petrarch
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Petrarch>